Before I get to the actual flower arranging, I dig around in the kitchen to see what I might want to use for vases. I pull four beer cans from the recycling bin, along with an old coffee can, and I dig out one of my favorite ceramic vases from a still-packed kitchen box. The coffee-can lid gets tossed back in the recycling, and the vase gets unwrapped, but the beer cans require a little more work. I attack one of the tops with my shears, cutting around the edges until I can yank on the tab and rip the whole thing off, leaving me a perfect cylinder.

I’m stabbing beer can number two when Jack startles me out of my concentration. “Um, what’s going on here?”

Jumping about a foot, I barely manage to avoid stabbing myself in the process. “Jesus, dude, first rule of roommating, don’t sneak up on anyone holding scissors. Or a knife. Or anything sharp that could literally poke their eyes out. And by ‘their eyes,’ I mean my eyes, which I’d quite like to keep in my head, thank you very much.”

His face scrunches up like he’s making some sort of mental note. “Sorry. No sneaking. Won’t happen again.” He crosses over to the kitchen peninsula, which looks like a floral shop exploded all over it, which, to be fair, it basically did. “What’s going on here?”

“Floral arranging.” I look at him and blink a lot so he knows how I feel about questions he should already know the answer to, because hello, look at the counter.

“I thought your thing was gardening.”

“It’s both. And yes, you’re right, the backyard is already looking a million times better than before I moved in.” I meet his eyes and smile sweetly, right before piercing the top of the next beer can.

He gestures to the mounds of flowers currently covering all available space in his kitchen. “Is this going to be an everyday occurrence?”

I get to work on beer can number four. “Not right away, but hopefully once my business picks up some traction, then maybe yeah. Maybe at that point I’ll have enough to rent a small studio space somewhere. Though I’d obviously have to be really raking it in for that to be a possibility. But it’s totally a possibility, I mean, I definitely have ‘next Martha Stewart’ potential, don’t you think?” I slip back into my woman-at-work mask flawlessly, charming confidence fitting over me like armor to hide all the doubts I naturally have about this business venture’s succeeding.

Jack picks up a peony, examining it like it might bite him. “I thought you were looking for a job in finance.”

“I was going to, but do you remember that whole thing about my job being the least interesting thing about me?”